end of a giraffe’s black tongue; the end-piece doesn’t keep slipping off like too-large pants, and you don’t have to keep smashing it back on in frustration until the damn thing cracks and eventually shatters. But the leaves react no differently. They plume outward with each blast of air just as you remember. Curl around you, a leaf storm in your own front yard. And of course there are still stray leaves. Nothing can stop some from remaining, pock marking the yard. * * * You hate the damn power washer, ever since your father made you use it on the driveway and the hose burst free and water sprayed everywhere. So when your father tells you he wants you to help him wash the patio, you curse to yourself as you stomp across the grass. Your father is sweeping debris and dirt from the ground, and when you arrive, hands curled in fists, he points to the washer, hooked up to the hose and plugged into a wall outlet that hasn’t been used for so long you’re surprised the hinged cover will still open. The washer hums with potential energy, waiting to burst concentrated streams from its nozzle at the lightest pressure placed on the trigger. When you begin washing the patio, the powerful water disintegrates the grimy layer that has resided on the concrete so long the two seem inseparable. As you work, you see the color of clean, strong cement begin to emerge. You begin doodling, the washer your colored pencil, digging out spirals and circles and signatures. * * * The ground is drowning in walnuts, so you drag your sisters outside to help you. Years from now you won’t be able to remember how old the three of you were when they began working in the yard in the afternoon, but you will remember that slowly you became nothing more than a spectator. You will remember watching them from the deck, kicking down to them any walnuts that have taken up residence there, pushing them through the open space between the porch surface and the rail, hearing them plunk onto the ground below. They need you to carry the basket—it is too heavy for them. Each time you carry it, you remember the smell and feel of the walnuts, the grooved texture, the stain they’d leave on your fingertips. When you’d wipe your hands
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